Friday, February 22, 2013

Second grade has been chock-full of school projects.
Any time a project requires a costume, prop, special supplies, ect... I conciser it to be "mommy homework" as well as 2nd grade homework.

This week was filled with two mommy homework type projects. Two. I'm tired just thinking about it. ;)

One of the assignments was a career report.

Dylan had to pick a career that peaked his interest and do a report on it. He was sent home with this paper doll that we were to cut out and "dress" to look like a person in said career.

Dylan of course chose to be a film director. What does a film director dress like though? Regular clothes is my guess, but that wouldn't make for a fun project. So I googled it and Dylan picked out this image:

Dylan and I worked together to measure and cut out clothes and decorate his little dude:

I thought he turned out pretty darn cute. Daniel made the little megaphone/bullhorn for us.
Such a good daddy!On a side note: Dylan really wanted to dress the little doll-guy on Wednesday, when I had planned to do it on Thursday. I thought "Okay, no big deal." But when I went to get construction paper we were completely out. Thank God for the best neighbors in the world who let us have some of their craft supplies! And it was really good think I listened to Dylan's wanting to do the project "early" because Thursday was crazy-busy and I have no idea how we would have gotten it done. Ok back to it..

And then Dylan wrote the report:

Dylan also had dress up to give a presentation on the report.
Again, how to dress up as a director? This was what we came up with:

The second project, which was due on the same day was Mini Mall.
Basically all of the kids bring in things to "sell", "buy", and trade with each other.
It could be anything they wanted... old toys, books, baked goods, friendship bracelets, service coupons, ect.. The kids bring their stuff in and set up a "shop" on their desk. They price their items and sell them to their friends for fake money that they have all been earning in class through out the year. Its a pretty cool concept, I think. Dylan was so, so excited about this project.

He decided to do mystery grab bags in his shop. He filled them with a couple of old book, some toys I had caught on super clearance last year, crayons, and legos. I through a fruit snack in the bottom of each one too. I was impressed with his idea to put legos in the bag. He picked out some old mini figures and then some random bricks and put them in a ziplock bag to make "a little lego pack." In one of the bags, Dylan built a pretty good sized "lego set". My boy is creative, that's for sure.

I told him I thought his shop would sell out quickly and I was right. Mommy's always are though, aren't we? ;) Dylan was so excited when I picked him up from school. He said everyone loved the mystery bag idea and that he sold out fast! When we got home he was so proud to show us what all he had bought from his friends. I was tickled at how many baked goods he bought. I don't think the picture shows it but he came home with 6 packs of cookies, a cup brownie bites, and a cupcake. He bought the cupcake for me and peanut butter cookies for Daniel. And he bought his little sister a One Direction book (she "fainted" when he gave it to her) and a Justin Beaver doll. How sweet is he?!?

Sunday, February 17, 2013

For our family its about celebrating the love that we all have for each other, rather than a romantic holiday between Daniel and I.

My favorite tradition (actually, I think its the favorite of all ours) is our love note mailboxes.
The night of January 31, the kid put their mailboxes out. Each morning from then until Valentines day Daniel and I take turns leaving them a love note and a small treat.

The get so excited each morning to check their mail. Some days they would get one small piece of candy and other days they got a bigger treat, like bubble bath. What melted my heart is that they were so sweet and grateful every single morning. They would go on and on about how much they loved their mail, even on "small" days. And they love the notes just as much as the treats, especially Dylan.

Actually, I think their favorite treat were the two golden tickets they each got. They went on and on and on about those. And they were so cute trying to keep up with them until the right time to "redeem" them.

When I asked London what kind of valentines she wanted to give to her class, she said "A little snack and a little drink." That little girl.. she just makes me laugh. I wan't sure where to go with her suggestion, until I saw this one pinterest:

I was so excited when I found it. A little snack and a little drink, exactly what she asked for!

I changed it up just a little bit, and was thrilled with how they turned out.
The best part was how excited London got and how proud she was of them.
She wanted to help me make them, of course (she wants to help me with pretty much everything I do). So I asked her to put 4 kisses in each bag. I was kind of amazed when she was finished and had done exactly that. Every single bag had exactly four kisses in it. We had some extras, so she added two more to each bag, which she said equals six. My smart little girl!

Dylan and I sat down together and I showed him some ideas I found on pinterest for his Valentines. This is what he picked out:

I thought it was precious!

Dylan was a little less excited to help me make them all. To be fair, he had play rehearsal to get to.
He and Daniel helped me stuff all the balloons with candy and blow them up though, which was huge help.

Here is our version of it:

You may notice our wording is a little different. That's because we had some drama.
The night before V-day Daniel posted a picture of our original version that said "Your the Bomb", where it was pointed out that they may not be appropriate for school. Oh my gosh. It NEVER crossed my mind that these would be a problem. And I'm THAT mom that doesn't let her kids play with toy guns. I don't know why, but it never, ever crossed my mind that these could be "violent". I get it now. I just didn't think of it before. Very long story short, after a couple of frantic emails to the teacher, calls to my mom, tears on my part (because I knew Dylan was going to be devastated if he didn't have anything to take to school the next morning) we changed the wording they were okay to go to school. Ugh. I know I must have gained at least one wrinkle and a few grey hairs from that night.

Dylan loved them so much though. When I picked him from school on Valentines day he was so excited to tell me that "They were EVERYONE's favorite" and "EVERYONE loved them so much, mom!"
And that made it worth all of it, even the wrinkle.

I packed both kiddos a special pink, red, and heart shaped lunch. I was a little worried that Dylan would be embarrassed. I was so relieved when he got home and said that he loved it and his buddies thought it was cool too. I'm not sure how much longer he'll feel that way, but I'm so glad he does for now. As it turned out, London didn't need a packed lunch because her class had pizza. I didn't find this out until I dropped her off that morning. I saved it for her though and she was excited to open it after school and have the the strawberries and milk for snack.

Dylan's school had Donuts with Dad that morning.
Sadly, I don't have a picture from that. I hear they had a great time though. ;)
London and I decided to have our own special breakfast, Muffins with Mommy.

Miss Priss pretty much made them all by herself. I measured the milk, helped poor the batter into the pan, and she did the rest

We watched cartoons while we had our yummy breakfast.

I loved her little Valentines day outfit this year. She looked so grown up that I hardly knew what to do with myself. And those waves in her hair... I could just eat this kid up.

Right after getting to the preschool for London's party, I got a phone call from Dylan's school nurse. He had an awful headache and need me to come get him. His party was in less than an hour, so I knew he meant it that he was feeling bad.

I stayed with London for just a couple of minutes. I was worried she's be upset that I wasn't staying, but she was champ about it.

I picked Dylan up and took him home. I was relieved that he was at least feeling well enough to tell me all about his day. And also relieved that they had already passed out valentines. I loved the bag that he made, so creative just like him...

He took a long nap when we got home, which was his own suggestion, so I knew again that he really didn't feel well. Thankfully, by the time he woke up the Motrin had kicked in and he felt mostly all better.

After we picked Lou Lou up, we all sat in the floor and looked through both of their valentines This is my favorite part of the day. It brings me right back to my own childhood.

I usually make a big fuss about dinner, folding all sorts of traditions into it, but this year I was just done with the day by time to eat. I don't mean that in a "I can't wait for the day to be over" kind of way. Just that it was comical how many little things went awry. I told Daniel it felt like I was living in a sitcom. Its not even worth listing it all, because honestly its not how I remember the day as a whole, but if I did you would laugh with me. So by about 4:00, I knew I wasn't going to stress about dinner. Plus, with the way things were going, the stove might have caught fire had I tried cooking.

We ate at Chick-Fil-A. I was going to bring our heart shaped plates to eat on, but Daniel gave me a funny look when I suggested it.

At the end of the night we gave the kids their valentines gifts. They each got a Bible. Dylan's got a "real" one that he had been asking for and London got a girly picture bible, and they each got a small box of chocolate.
When we tucked them in, Dylan said this was the best Valentines day ever. He didn't even noticed the traditions that were missing. Part of me wanted to scream about that, but mostly my heart was bursting with happiness. Daniel and I snuggled up and spent the night watching TV and just hanging out.

I've been the worst at keeping up with this little "journal" of mine this past year.
But 2013 is here, and one of my goals is be regular with posting here.
I love having so many of our memories written down here and being able to flip back a couple of years and read what our life was like. And its a great way for our parents and family to stay connected to our day to day lives. All that being said, my goal is to post at least once a week.
Lets see how that turns out.

Okay, New Years Eve (Yes, a month and a half ago) was spent with some of our favorite friends.
We played games, ate amazing food (thanks, Jen!) and laughed so hard it hurt. I don't know who had more fun, the kids or the adults.

We all have young kids, so we decided that we would ring in the new year at 11pm with NYC when their ball dropped. We were trying to pass it off as though it was midnight for us too. We covered the clocks, pored apple cider, made toast to the new year. The kids were all very happy with it. Shortly after that, we got in our car to head home. Dylan looks at the dash board and asked why the clock says 11:05. I told him that maybe Daddy's clock was wrong, which satisfied him. That is until we got home and those clocks said 11:10 (or something like that). Ugh. I didn't think all of that through.

We all put on our pjs and snuggled up to bring in the New Year in real time.
It was a perfect way to do so.